


Tangent Lines

by aohatsu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Magical Shenanigans, Reality Jumping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aohatsu/pseuds/aohatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry wakes up in a world in which Emma never gave him up for adoption, because Neal never left her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangent Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [Kristen](http://codephrasewyk.tumblr.com/). <333 Or at least read through by Kristen, lmao. Any and all mistakes are my own.

“Hey kid, wake up or you’ll be late for school.”

Henry groans and pulls his blankets up closer to his head, trying to keep the noise out. He’d stayed up late last night, hiding under the covers with his flashlight to read a new chapter of the book. It’s just that sometimes; he doesn’t want to put it down. They’re more than just stories, or even, like, history, it’s, he’s reading about peoples’ lives, and it’s important.  
  
But now it’s morning, and he’s so tired he thinks another five minutes won’t be so bad.

There’s a loud rapping on his door, and he groans louder.  
  
“Henry, come on, your Mom’ll murder me if you’re late again.”  
  
Henry waves haphazardly, and then pauses a moment later, cracking his eyes open. He sits up, rubbing at his eyes, and then squints, because... this isn’t his room. There’s shoes and clothes piled on the floor that look like they might belong to a kid his age, and a pile of comics on the end table next to him that he’d totally read, but he doesn’t think they’re his either, because he doesn’t recognize that cover of the Incredible Hulk. He looks towards the door, revealing a long stretch of hallway that he doesn’t recognize either.  
  
“Uh,” he says, and then: “I think I’m still sleeping.”  
  
It’s not Mary Margaret’s apartment, that’s for sure, and it’s not his mom’s—or Regina’s, anyway.  
  
There’s a muffled chuckle that comes from the hallway, like whoever it is isn’t that far away, and Henry slides off the bed as whoever it is yells, “Nice try, kid.”  
  
Henry doesn’t recognize the voice, because it’s a guy, but it’s not David, or Archie, or Marco or anyone can think of. Looking down, he takes a step back, tugging at his shirt to get a better look at it. It’s Spiderman, all red-and-black, and his pajama pants match, but they’re not his.

 _This is so weird_ , he thinks, and then spins around when he realizes he doesn’t have the book. He frantically throws the pillow off the bed, and then looks under the comforter, and then under the actual bed, and he pushes the comics off the table, but he can’t find the book. What’s going _on_?

“You’re still not dressed?” this time the words are closer, and Henry jumps, his heart beating wildly in his chest, partially because he was surprised, but mostly because he’s in somebody else’s _house_. The guy is standing in the doorway of the bedroom, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, eyebrows raised like Henry is the weird one here.  
  
“Get dressed,” he says, “and I’ll drive you instead of making you catch the bus. We can even pop waffles in the toaster. Sound good?” Henry just stares, and then shakes his head, and he’s about to say something, like _Who are you? Why am I here? Where’s Emma?_ but the guy narrows his eyes, and then his face scrunches up in a smile like he’s amused, and he says, “What happened, a tornado came through here in the past five minutes? Clean your room, Dorothy.”  
  
Henry finally makes himself say something, because this is weird, yeah, but he’s dealt with weird before, and the first thing you do is figure out where you are, and how you got there, and how you get home.  
  
“Where am I?” Henry says, crossing his arms. “Where’s Emma?”  
  
The guy doesn’t answer, just backs up and leaves, and Henry, kind of maybe starting to freak out, fumbles and then runs after him. The guy just went in the next room over though, a bathroom, and is spitting water into the sink, dropping the toothbrush he had into a cup.  
  
“Your turn,” he says, and backs up to give Henry enough room to go in and... brush his teeth. “You know the plan. Mom’s at work until four, we have to pick her up. Remember? We have to grab a cake from the store on the way.”  
  
“Cake?” Henry says, more confused than ever. “We’re getting cake for Emma?”  
  
The guy gives him a look, like Henry’s being silly, and then puts his hand on Henry’s head, ruffling his hair up. Henry pulls back and says, “Hey!”  
  
“Since when do you call your mom Emma? You better not start calling me Neal. I’ll start calling you Tinkerbelle, you know you don’t want that. C’mon, brush your teeth and put on some jeans. I’ll go get the waffles.”  
  
Henry runs out into the hallway, and yells as the guy—Neal, apparently?—turns the corner into what must be the kitchen, “But why are _you_ taking me to school?”  
  
“If you say you love your mom more, I’ll cry,” Neal yells back, and then, “Brush your teeth!”

 _Yeah, sure,_ Henry thinks, but slowly starts walking backwards instead. There has to be a backdoor somewhere, he thinks, and it only takes a minute of looking to find it. He pads through the family room, and winces when the screen door creaks when he pushes it open. Except—except when he takes a step outside, he stops, frozen.

It’s just a bunch of regular houses, really, except not-so-far-away, he can see huge buildings, like, skyscrapers you’d see in a city, and those... they really don’t have those in Storybrooke. He backs up, back into the house, and shuts the door.  
  
Henry goes back to the bathroom and grabs the kid-sized toothbrush roughly and brushes his teeth, and then ruffles through the drawers in the bedroom he woke up in. The pair of jeans he grabs fit, and the t-shirt he grabs fits too, and it weirds him out even more. He heads to the kitchen, poking his head in first, and the guy waves an instant toaster waffle at him before dropping it on a paper plate.  
  
“Grab the syrup, would you?” he says, and Henry nods, grabbing it from the fridge.  
  
He sits down at the table, stuffed into the kind of small kitchen. Neal sits across from him and gives him another weird look. “This has to be something to do with magic,” Henry says, finally, and Neal coughs on the waffle.  
  
“What does?” he says, when he’s finally able to breathe again. “The waffles? Pretty sure they’re just waffles, man. Instant waffles at that. Save the magic talk for your mom’s birthday.”  
  
“It’s Emma’s birthday!?” Henry yells, because it wasn’t her birthday yesterday, it wasn’t for like, months!

Neal leans back in his chair, and he says, “Yeah. Big twenty-eight. You feeling okay?”  
  
Henry met his mom on her twenty-eighth birthday, she can’t be turning twenty-eight. Unless Henry’s somehow gone back in time. Except, well, this guy definitely wasn’t in Emma’s apartment back then, and he wouldn’t know Henry, so... alternate universe? Isn’t that more sci-fi than fairy tale?  
  
Except it just occurs to him, the way that Neal’s been acting so far all morning, and Emma being twenty-eight, and Henry—Henry sort of, well, living here, with them like—like a family would—  
  
He stares at Neal, and then says, fingers trembling on his fork, “You’re my dad?”

Neal sits his chair back down and gets this worried look on his face, but he says, “Last time I checked,” and Henry can’t sit still, or eat waffles, or—and he doesn’t care if this is magic or a curse or even just a dream still, like maybe he fell asleep reading and he’s dreaming about his dad, because it wouldn’t be the first time, and he’s jumping up and wrapping his arms around Neal’s waist, and Neal is hugging him back, bewildered and saying something about being okay, but Henry just wants to hug him, this guy who—who—

“I just wanted to hug you,” Henry says, voice muffled in Neal’s t-shirt. Neal pats the back of his head, and rubs his back, and says, “Alright, I’m always cool with the random hugs from my kid.” A minute later, he adds, “Just so you know, this isn’t getting you out of going to school.”  
  
Henry grins and laughs, and shakes his head, “I really did just want a hug.” He pulls back, and quickly finishes his waffles, and lets Neal throw a backpack at him and then shuffle him out of the house. In the driveway, Henry recognizes Emma’s yellow bug. It looks just the same, in every way, except Henry notices while walking around it, that the plates don’t read for Maine.  
  
They’re in _Florida_.

“What’s up, Henry?” Neal asks, opening the driver’s side door to get in the car, even though Henry is staring at the license plate.  
  
“Why Florida?” he asks blankly. “That doesn’t make any sense.”  
  
Neal gets a really ridiculous looking smile on his face, and he shakes his head and says, “I’m fairly sure you’re too young to hear the story about me and your mom’s Bonnie and Clyde days. Stop dawdling and get in the car. This is why you’re always late.”  
  
Henry runs around the car and hops in. It’s kind of weird to be in the bug with someone who isn’t Emma, or even David, but it’s nice too, and he finds himself hoping this isn’t just a dream. But if it really is a magic thing, he’s not really sure how to get back home. They’re not in Storybrooke, they don’t have access to magic here. Probably.  
  
“So...” Henry starts, suddenly thinking he should probably be taking advantage of this to get to know his dad better, whatever it might be, dream or magic or whatever. “You’re a fireman?”  
  
Neal side-eyes him, and then looks back to the road with a huff. “Don’t start planning Halloween on me yet.”  
  
Oh. _That’s weird,_ Henry thinks. Emma said that his dad was a fireman before he died. Except he obviously didn’t die in this parallel universe, and he and Emma decided to keep Henry, instead of putting him up for adoption. This is the life he would have had, Henry realizes, except... except what happened so differently? And why did it all change just now?  
  
“What do you do?” he asks, after another minute.  
  
Neal hums and says, “I’ll play along. I, good sir, am a mechanic. How about you?”  
  
“I’m just a kid,” Henry says, hugging his backpack to his chest.  
  
Neal lets out a noise, like a red alert noise from Star Trek, and says, “Wrong answer. You’re a fourth grader, and we’re at your school, so hop out.”  
  
It’s a big school, Henry can tell just from looking out the car window as Neal drives in to the parking lot area. It’s not even close to being the small size of the school he goes to in Storybrooke. But nobody here is wearing uniforms either. Henry thinks about it, and then turns back to Neal. “Um, what’s my teacher’s name?”

He doubts it’s Miss Blanchard. 

“Collins,” Neal says, and then reaches out and puts his hand on Henry’s forehead. “You sure you’re alright? I know I said no more skipping, but if you’re sick—“  
  
“I skip school?” Henry says, surprised.  
  
Neal laughs, says, “Oh, God, do you skip school. Would you please get to class, Tinkerbelle?”  
  
“I’m not Tinkerbelle,” Henry says, serious faced. He’s never even met the real Tinkerbelle. At least, he doesn’t think so. He might not have noticed, what with the fairies being normal sized people in Storybrooke. Well, the Blue Fairy is regular-sized, anyway.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll pick you up at three and we’ll grab the cake.” Neal waves from the bug as he drives off, making room for other parents as they drop off their kids. Henry drops his backpack to the sidewalk and unzips it, looking to see what’s inside, and if it’ll help him figure out where to go now. When he catches sight of the book though, he excitedly exclaims, “Yes!” and pulls it out. It’s just the same as it is back in Storybrooke.

 

 

 

“Mr. Cassidy,” Henry hears from behind him, and that’s not his last name, but he thinks he’s the only one in the hall anymore, because he doesn’t know what classroom he should be in. He turns around.  
  
There’s a lady in a suit, who kind of looks like his mom. She’s looking at him with an expectant expression, and says, “Do you have a hall pass?”  
  
“No,” Henry says. “I actually just got lost.” He tries smiling. It doesn’t work, at least not in the way he meant. She does escort him to his class though, which is helpful. Mr. Collins looks up from the head of the classroom and says, “Ah, Henry. You are here today.”  
  
His other self, the one who grew up here, must skip class a lot. He sinks into an empty seat at a table with three other kids, but none of them pay any attention to him. His heart sinks a little. He’d been kind of, well, hoping that maybe he had friends, here. He doesn’t really have any in Storybrooke either. Nobody seems to like him very much, unless they’re forced to, like his mom and Emma, and anyone else who happens to be related to him, like Miss Blanchard and David.  
  
To be fair, in Storybrooke, he aged while nobody else really did. It was kind of vague and weird, but he definitely noticed it after Mary Margaret gave him the book, and he started paying attention, like a fog had been lifted. Nobody else seemed to notice, but he thought that _now_ , maybe, without the curse, he’d have been able to make friends better.

Apparently not.

He tries to pay attention, but he’s not really sure what they’re talking about, and nobody bothers to ask him anything. At recess, he hangs back and reads his book, because that’s what’s important anyway. Figuring out what’s going on is way more important than, like, trying to be friends with kids who don’t want anything to do with him.  
  
And that’s fine, he thought, except he starts to feel kind of dizzy after a few minutes. The pictures in his book start to blur, and it’s almost like the dwarves start stomping, walking out of the book itself and, and yelling, and he can’t hear the kids on the playground anymore, just the loud pounding of axes against rock, and people yelling about fairy dust, and he thinks—he thinks that sounds like David. He yells out, trying to get David’s attention, but his hands just go right through the image, and he falls, falls, everything is dark and black and then, fire, there’s fire everywhere, it’s the room, it’s the room because of the sleeping curse, and it’s burning and he can’t breathe, help, Mom, David, Mary Margaret, _Mom_ —

He wakes up crying, because he’s terrified for a minute, but it’s Emma, Emma with her long curly hair falling over her shoulders, and her arms wrapped around him, comforting him as she rocks him back and forth, and she’s saying, “It’s okay, Henry, you’re going to be fine.”

He pulls back, trying to wipe at his eyes with his sleeves, and he notices Neal sitting there too, with a worried look on his face. He’s not home then, he thinks, and it almost makes him want to cry again.  
  
“Hey buddy,” Neal says. “You blacked out again.”

Again?  
  
Emma nods, and brushes a hand through his hair, looking just as worried as Neal. He doesn’t like that look on his mom’s face though, especially not because of him.  
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”  
  
“Of course not, Henry. You should have come to the nurse when you started feeling dizzy though,” Emma says. “You really scared us.”  
  
That’s where they are—the nurses’ room, in his elementary school. He recognizes the small, sanitized feeling, and the man with his stethoscope standing behind Emma is a pretty obvious clue.  
  
“It’s—it’s Operation Cobra, Emma,” Henry says, hoping that this Emma remembers, somehow, like him.  
  
“What?” Emma says though, and she doesn’t understand at all. “What’s Operation Cobra?”

“It’s—“ but this isn’t the time to be worried about, what, looking crazy? Obviously they all already think he’s crazy, he’s blacking out and none of the kids like him, and he skips school all the time, and it has to be because of the curse, all of it. Emma is turning twenty-eight. This is the day she’s supposed to be going to Storybrooke. She’s supposed to start weakening the curse, and they’re in Florida.  
  
They’re in Tallahassee, Florida.

“It’s the curse,” he says, desperate. “You have to break it.”  
  
Emma looks at him for a long minute, and then shakes her head and laughs, kind of sad-like, and says, “Okay, kid. Come on, let’s get you home.” But Henry is looking at Neal, who has this really weird look, like, like he’s nervous, or even scared of something.  
  
“Wait,” he says, right as Neal says, “what curse?”  
  
“The Evil Queen cast a curse on the whole land, like, the magical land, and now they’re all stuck in Storybrooke! Snow White and Prince Charming and Red Riding Hood and Jiminy Cricket, and everyone!”  
  
But Neal looks less than sure about it, says, “Jiminy Cricket?” and Emma is rolling her eyes and pulling at Henry, making him stand up off the little bed. She keeps a hand on his shoulder to help him balance, because he’s still a little dizzy, and Neal signs them out in the office because he’s his _dad_. Henry shakes his head and they go out and get into the yellow bug, all three of them, even though school can’t be over with yet.  
  
“So... you think your mom is the only one who can break this curse?” Neal proposes, a minute later, after they’ve all buckled up. Henry can’t see his face, but his heart speeds up in his throat anyway, because it almost sounds like Neal might believe him. Nobody believes him, not until, well, the actual curse broke. They’d all just pretended to.  
  
“Neal,” Emma says, like a warning sound. Neal leans over and kisses her forehead, and turns to look at Henry better. Henry makes a face at the kiss, because ew, but he shakes it off and says, “Yeah! Because she’s Snow White and Prince Charming’s daughter!”  
  
“What? Henry,” Emma says, “where is this all coming from?”  
  
“It’s true! It’s all in my book, here,” Henry says, and then struggles to pull the book out of his backpack and hand it up to Emma and Neal.  
  
“Who gave you this?” Neal asks, and his voice sounds harder all the sudden, more serious. Emma looks at Neal, and she looks kind of surprised too, like she’s not used to it either.

 _Snow White_ , he almost says. At least, in his world, he got it from Mary Margaret, from Snow White. But who would have given it to Henry in this world? Who could’ve come to Tallahassee to give him a book about the people in Storybrooke? They’re all stuck there because of the curse. Except...

“It was probably August,” Henry says, and then the car swerves and he yells, and Emma yells, and Neal curses really loudly and then apologizes and yells to ask if Henry is okay, and he is, he is, but what he says is, “You _know_!” because that kind of reaction? Isn’t just believing your kid, it’s knowing. Henry knows the difference. Recently, he’s had to.  
  
“Know what?” Emma yells. “Who the hell is August?”  
  
But Neal doesn’t explain, and he pulls the car over on the side of the road, and turns around as best he can in his seat, and looks directly at Henry and says, “Henry, how do you know that guy? Did he start talking to you at school? Fuck, you’re not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“He’s not a stranger!” Henry says, only he might be, in this world. But he’s Pinocchio, so he can’t be a bad guy. “I think he gave me the book because he wanted me to convince you to go to Storybrooke. The curse is supposed to break on Emma’s birthday.”  
  
“ _Mom_ ,” Emma says, almost like she’s scolding him, but then she shakes her head. “Henry, who the hell’s been telling you about curses? Seriously?”  
  
“It must be why I’ve been having the dreams!” Henry tries, because blacking out—if the other, well, him, experienced anything like what he just did? He was dreaming about Henry’s Storybrooke. _His_ , the real one. He saw David, looking for fairy dust. Probably to try and get Henry back, because they’d all have been freaking out since Henry disappeared this morning, right? Of course they’d be trying to get him back somehow!  
  
Maybe even just going back to town will break this weird... dream-thing he’s in. He looks at Neal, and Emma, and how concerned they look. He kind of wants this, wants parents. Real parents, and a _dad_. Neal’s a good dad too, as far as Henry can tell. He made him waffles and everything, and it’s nice, but... but Henry needs to get back to Storybrooke, to Emma and Mary Margaret and David, and... and his other mom, Regina. She’s the Evil Queen and all, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t his _mom_. They’re his and they’re real and he needs to go back.

“Please believe me,” he says, his voice cracking on the words.  
  
“Henry,” Emma says, apologetic and at a loss of words. Henry knows because he’s heard that same voice before, more than once even.

It’s a long ride back to the house.

 

 

 

Henry presses his back to the wall and slides down until his butt hits the carpet. He pulls his knees up close to his chest, and listens to his parents—his parents?—argue in the next room. They think he ran to his room and slammed the door, because, well, he did, for a minute, but he couldn’t just sit and cry while they’re talking about it, about the curse, and Storybrooke.  
  
“Are you insane?” Emma says, and she’s not yelling, but it sounds angrily hushed, like she wishes she were yelling.

Neal is talking the same way, only he doesn’t sound quite so angry. At least, Henry doesn’t think so. “Our kid thinks this is real, Emma!”  
  
“Because some jackass told him it was! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this guy,” Emma says. “Or call the cops.”  
  
“I threatened to call the cops on him!” Neal yells, “I thought that was the end of it; I never saw him again. I had no idea he’d come back and started talking to Henry, Emma, I swear.”  
  
Henry’s hands are white where he’s gripping his legs so tightly, listening to them talk about him like, like he’s crazy. They don’t believe him after all. He’d thought, for a minute—

“You have to tell me crap like this Neal,” Emma says, sounding more upset than angry now. “Some guy’s been following us around, following Henry around. Talking about curses and fairy tales,” she trails off.  
  
It’s quiet for a minute. Henry almost gets up, almost goes into the living room to try and explain it again, to get them to listen, but Neal speaks up before he can, and it’s quiet, so quiet Henry wonders for a second if he just made it up in his head. Neal says, “What if he’s right?”  
  
Emma laughs, but she just sounds tired. “Right about what? Storybrooke?”

“I’m serious,” Neal says. “What if it’s all real and we doom this entire town because I was too stupid to listen to this guy back when he first showed up?”  
  
“Oh,” Emma laughs roughly, “and the logical solution would’ve been to leave me behind, like he wanted, like the total stranger wanted.”  
  
“Maybe it would’ve been, yeah, if it’s what saves an entire town of people.”  
  
“Oh, please,” Emma scoffs, and it sounds like the conversation is over, because Neal doesn’t say anything else. Henry can sort of hear them still moving around though, so he doesn’t get up. He doesn’t want them to accidentally find him there, listening in on them or anything. He wants his Emma back, the one who believed him. Even she didn’t believe him at first though; he’d had to convince her. That was easier though, they’d actually been in Storybrooke with everybody else.  
  
“You know I’m selfish, right?”  
  
That’s Neal’s voice again, but kind of far away and muffled sounding. Henry can barely hear him, and he doesn’t get it. That doesn’t have anything to do with the curse, or Storybrooke, or anything they’d been talking about. Emma makes a noise though, like she’s amused instead of angry, so that’s good.  
  
“Yeah,” she says. “I mean, trust me, I know.”

Henry pushes up off the floor, climbing back to his feet as quietly as he can. He’s going to go back to his room, and get the book, and try to figure out a way to Storybrooke on his own—maybe then they’ll have to follow him. He could steal Emma’s or Neal’s credit card and get on a greyhound bus again. It worked last time.

But he pauses, and he’s not sure why. They’re still quiet in the other room, and Henry feels like he’s intruding, even though he’s not really. They don’t even know he’s here. But it’s a good thing he did stay, because Neal says, “I need to tell you something.”  
  
Emma doesn’t say anything. Henry really wants to poke his head around the corner and look in, but he knows he’ll get caught if he does, so he just waits and listens. Eventually, Neal says, “Maybe I’m crazy. It’s possible, isn’t it? They thought I was crazy when I got here.”  
  
Emma asks, “What are you getting at?”  
  
“I believed him. August, when he came to me, said there was a curse, and you were the only one that could break it. I mean, I figured that was just my luck. Come here, adapt, and fall in love with a damn princess. Don’t make that face,” he adds, and Henry doesn’t know what face Emma is making, but he wishes he could see it. “You’ll get wrinkles.”  
  
“Shut up,” Emma says. “And that doesn’t make any sense. Since when do you believe in fairy tales?”  
  
“That’s what I need to tell you,” Neal says. “I don’t know about... Snow White, or Cinderella, whatever, Disney, but... Emma, that world August was talking about? I believe in that, because that’s where I’m from.”  
  
Henry’s so surprised he accidentally bumps into a picture on the wall, and it falls and crashes into the ground. He jumps and Emma and Neal are running into the hallway already, Emma yelling, “Henry, what was that—“

She sees the picture frame and heaves a sigh, and then sends Henry a glare. Henry quips, “Sorry.”  
  
“Don’t scare us like that, man,” Neal says, walking around Henry. He puts a hand on Henry’s shoulder, and then let go in order to crouch down and pick up the frame. The glass is all shattered, so he can’t get it all, but Henry doesn’t really care right now anyway. “You’re from Storybrooke?” Henry says, and he’s excited. This is crazy, but it makes sense too. That’s why August came to Neal, and that’s why Neal seems to sort of believe Henry. “Or, the world everyone was from before they were sent to Storybrooke, anyway.”

“Spying isn’t nice,” Neal says.

“You sort of made it really easy,” Henry says, and Emma laughs but crosses her arms and says, “Kid, that’s not how it works.”  
  
“But don’t you wanna’ know?” Henry asks excitedly. He’s sure she has to.

“Who are you?” Henry asks, and turns back around. “I mean, from before?”  
  
Neal looks up at Emma though, wary hesitation written all over his face. Henry looks back at Emma, but she’s just glaring full steam ahead. Henry remembers all the Tinkerbelle jokes from that morning, and hazards a guess. “Peter Pan?”

Neal huffs, “I don’t know about this Peter Pan and Snow White stuff, Henry.” He pauses. “My name was Baelfire, back then.”  
  
“Neal,” Emma starts, and Henry says, “What story is that?”  
  
“You’d probably know it as Rumplestiltskin,” Neal says, and cuts his finger on a piece of glass at the same time that Emma yells, “Neal, stop!”  
  
Emma looks mad, or hurt, or maybe both, but Henry’s too surprised to do anything about it. Neal is cursing and standing up, and starts sucking on the finger that he just cut. “Rumplestiltskin?” Henry says, slowly. “You’re—but Mr. Gold... how?”  
  
“Henry, go to your room,” Emma says. “I need to have a discussion with your father about when enough’s enough.”  
  
“He’s not making it up!” Henry yells, and then grabs onto Neal’s shirt so that he can’t disappear.

“Of course not,” Emma says, “because it makes perfect sense that he’s Rumplestiltskin.”  
  
“No,” Neal says, shaking his head. “No, I’m actually his son.” That’s— “Rumplestiltskin’s my father,” Neal keeps on, but he sounds resigned, like he’s signing his own death warrant.

Emma says, “They said—“ but cuts herself off, and looks at Henry, sort of the way Archie did. It means she’s censoring herself for his sake, and he always hates it when adults do that to him. He’s not stupid. But Henry's too busy thinking about what that means. Neal is Mr. Gold's son? Doesn't that mean Henry is Rumpelstiltskin's _grandson_?  
  
“I know it sounds crazy!” Neal insists. “But Emma, if my dad’s in this town, I need to go and find out. Even if you don’t believe in the curse, and it’s not like I blame you, it’s crazy, but you know what it’s like to get a clue after years,” and he sounds desperate by the end. Henry takes a step back, surprised by it.

“That’s—you think your dad is in Storybrooke?“ Emma asks, and she looks like she’s about to start crying too. “That’s not a clue, Neal, it’s fantasy, and if you depend on that, you’re just gonna’ end up disappointed.”  
  
“Maybe, maybe we will, but it won’t be the first time,” Neal says, “and if he isn’t there, that’ll be it. We won’t ever bring it up again. Right, Henry?” And Neal looks at Henry encouragingly, and Henry nods quickly and says, “Yeah!” because he knows that Mr. Gold is definitely in Storybrooke, because you can’t leave. “It’ll be over,” Neal says, looking back at Emma.  
  
Emma laughs, and puts her hand on her forehead. “Oh God, now I’m the crazy one. Okay, alright, we’ll go to Storybrooke.”  
  
 _Good_ , Henry thinks, and rushes to wrap his arms around Emma, hugging her tight and saying, "Thank you!"

They just have to get there, and then everybody will believe, just like last time.


End file.
